Former US President Bill Clinton has been doing the media rounds lately to promote his new book ‘Citizen: My Life after the White House’. While being interviewed by New York Times journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin, the topic of the Middle East came up within the context of the war in Gaza and the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
Clinton was asked by Sorkin if he had hope for the Middle East. Turning to the Israel-Palestine conflict the 42nd President said, “I think what’s happened there in the last 25 years is one of the great tragedies of the 21st century and when I tell the young people for example who are understandably, in America, they say they’re super sympathetic with the Palestinians, they’ve been killed a lot of, those Palestinians have, and all they know is a lot more Palestinians have been killed then Israelis. And I tell them what Arafat walked away from, and they like can’t believe it and I say oh yeah, he walked away from a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem, 96% of the West Bank, 4% of Israel to make up for the four per cent that the settlers were occupying that were beyond the borders in the 67 war.
“And I go through all the stuff that was in the deal and they, they like it’s not on their radar screen they can’t even imagine that that happened and I tell them you know the first and most famous victim of an attempt to give the Palestinians a state was Prime Minister Rabin, whom I think I loved as much I ever loved another man. And so, Rabin he dies and then Shimon Peres is defeated in the election and the rest is history, but you walk away from these once in a lifetime peace opportunities, you can’t complain 25 years later when the doors weren’t all still open and all the possibilities weren’t still there you can’t do it.”
Clinton was referring to the failed Camp David summit to settle the Israel-Palestine conflict in July 2000 between Ehud Barak and Yasar Arafat with Clinton mediating. For years Clinton has been stating that the talks failed because Arafat walked away from a very generous deal. This is not true.
First of all, the negotiations actually continued in Taba, Egypt from January 21 to 27, 2001, and it was Israel that walked away from them when on January 27 Barak ended the talks due to the upcoming Israeli elections and Ariel Sharon promised not to honour any understandings reached between the Israelis and Palestinians should he become prime minister. The talks were never restarted once Sharon defeated Barak.
Regarding Clinton’s claim that Rabin was “the first and most famous victim of an attempt to give the Palestinians a state,” this is also false. While it is tragic that Rabin was assassinated (by an extreme right-wing Israeli, it should be noted), he himself never wanted the Palestinians to have their own state. This was admitted by former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon in October 2015 when he stated that when bringing the Oslo accords to the Knesset, Rabin made clear that in any agreement the “Palestinian entity will be less than a state”
In terms of Clinton’s 96% of the West Bank statement, it was more like 91% of the West Bank. The Palestinians had accepted that 9% of the West Bank was to be annexed by Israel due to large Israeli settlements that had already been built (illegal under international law).This was a huge concession by the Palestinians as UN Eesolution 242 gave them by law, all of Gaza and the West Bank which includes East Jerusalem, i.e. the pre-1967 War borders.
The Palestinians had accepted that 9% of the West Bank was to be annexed by Israel due to large Israeli settlements that had already been built
According to Robert Malley, Clinton’s own Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli affairs from 1998 to 2001 and a member of the American peace team at Camp David, in exchange for the Palestinians accepting the annexation of 9% of the West Bank, they would be granted sovereignty over parts of Israel proper, equivalent to one-ninth of the annexed 9% West Bank land.
Malley stated that while a Palestinian state covering 91% of the West Bank and Gaza was more than most US and Israelis thought was possible, “how would Mr Arafat explain the unfavourable 9-to-1 ratio in land swaps to his people?” (The original article, which is not in the hyperlink, is from the New York Times July 8, 2001, edition. I have not included it as it may require registration in order for it to be read).
What is hardly ever mentioned, is what would the rest of the 91% of the West Bank have looked like based on the Camp David peace talks. Israeli academic Tanya Reinhart provided insight in a July 2001 article:
“These lands are cut up by 37 isolated settlements which were purposely built in the midst of the Palestinian population to enable future Israeli control of these areas. As a result, two million Palestinians are crowded in enclaves which consist of about 50 per cent of the West Bank, and the other 40 per cents are blocked by the defence array of some 40,000 settlers.”
As for East Jerusalem, while Palestinians would retain guardianship over the third holiest site in Islam, Haram al Sharif, (also known as the Temple Mount to Jews), Israel would exercise overall sovereignty over the area that Haram al Sharif falls under, again going against UN Resolution 242. Malley contends that while this was a difficult proposition for the Israelis to accept, “how could Mr Arafat have justified to his people that Israel would retain sovereignty over some Arab neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, let alone for Haram al Sharif?”
Another myth regarding Camp David which isn’t mentioned by Clinton but has been propagated throughout the last few decades is that the Palestinians made no concessions during the peace talks in July 2000. However, as has been shown in this article and as Malley recollects, this is false;
“The Palestinians were arguing for the creation of a Palestinian state based on the June 4, 1967, borders, living alongside Israel. They accepted the notion of Israeli annexation of West Bank territory to accommodate settlement blocs. They accepted the principle of Israeli sovereignty over the Jewish neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem – neighbourhoods that were not part of Israel before the Six Day War in 1967. And, while they insisted on recognition of the refugees’ right of return, they agreed that it should be implemented in a manner that protected Israel’s demographic and security interests by limiting the number of returnees. No other Arab party that has negotiated with Israel – not Anwar el- Sadat’s Egypt, not King Hussein’s Jordan, let alone Hafez al-Assad’s Syria – ever came close to even considering such compromises.”
If the Israel-Palestine conflict is ever going to be resolved; and it looks further away than ever at this moment, the truth about why past peace attempts failed needs to be known to move forward.
Mark Manduca has a Master’s degree in Diplomatic Studies from the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies.